Girls player of year: Crystal Dangerfield

Blackman's Crystal Dangerfield charges to the net against Mt. Juliet's Ashley Roby in the second half during the TSSAA Class AAA state semifinals Friday, March 7, 2014 at MTSU. Blackman won 55-46.(Photo: John A. Gillis/DNJ John A. Gillis/DNJ)

At a time when Crystal Dangerfield didn't know anything about making a first impression, she managed to do so anyway.

Not long after Chad Hibdon took over the Blackman girls basketball program, he and his coaching staff conducted an instructional camp. Among the campers was an energetic, enthusiastic second-grader.

"She was the kind of player that, when we'd let the little ones take a break for some water or some Starbursts or to play a game — she wasn't taking breaks, she wasn't playing hopscotch," Hibdon recalled.

"She was dribbling, shooting, doing cone drills. We knew then she was going to be special."

And while she earned the nickname "Little Hoop" back then — because she was just a little hooper, Hibdon said — and is still small in stature, Dangerfield is doing big things eight years later.

The Lady Blaze sophomore point guard has in the last year played for the U.S. Under-16 national team, led her high school squad to a Class AAA championship and a No. 1 spot in a pair of national rankings and earned recognition as the state's player of the year.

She can now add 2014 Tennessean girls basketball player of the year to her growing résumé.

"I think she has the potential to be the best point guard in her class in the country," said Kiel Moore, national women's basketball recruiting analyst for ProspectsNation.com. "She can do a little bit of everything on the floor. She has great physical ability and basketball IQ, and that's pretty rare for her age (15). You usually get one or the other.

"To be able to lead and win a national championship as a sophomore shows she has great potential, for high school and college and beyond that. What she's able to do and how she's able to do it, those are natural gifts."

After a successful middle-school career, Dangerfield's arrival at the high-school level had been anticipated, and she didn't disappoint as a freshman — averaging 14.4 points, 3.4 assists, 3.3 rebounds and 3.2 steals as Blackman went 26-5 and advanced to the Class AAA sectionals.

A year later, her numbers (14.4 points, 3.6 assists, three steals, 2.7 rebounds) nearly mirrored those from her first varsity season, but improvements were made.

"My mind-set was that I couldn't be the same player I was last year," she said. "I had to take a different role. Last year, I was depended on to score more. This year, I wanted to focus on getting everybody where they needed to be and getting them more scoring options than for myself."

"As a freshman, she felt like she had to make things happen. Now, she lets things happen and uses her ability and her talent and her teammates at a higher level," Hibdon said. "As a freshman, it was super-fast, all the time. That was the speed she played at. She figured out letting the game come to her, not trying to rush things or play in a hurry. As the game presents the opportunities for her to make plays for herself and her teammates, she did things in the flow of the game and in the flow of what we were doing.

"As a freshman, she came in to play her game and treated everybody the same way. As a sophomore, she understands how her teammates need the ball to be productive players."

Dangerfield realizes that when her teammates are productive, everybody wins.

"They made my job a whole lot easier," she said. "It was a lot less stressful than last year … having everybody's game mature and get better from last year. They did an awesome job."